


These Foolish Things

by Delphi



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: First Time, Gangsters, M/M, Romance, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-16
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-11-10 02:23:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irezumi, and the line between being a kept boy and a made man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Foolish Things

Shin’s eighteen when he gets his first tattoo. After five years of making himself useful—running numbers, providing muscle, even delivering a few messages for Mr. Zolt himself—he’s finally a made man, a full member of the Triple Threat Triad. 

One of his new elder sisters takes him down to one of the gang’s lotus houses and steers him past the dope fiends lounging on their couches, past the apothecary setup in the back, into a little closet-sized room papered with drawings of dragons and koi and pygmy pumas. A little old woman with a set of bamboo needles motions him impatiently onto the table.

It takes all day, breaking only for tea and rice porridge around lunchtime, but Shin doesn’t mind. He’s used to being still for a long time, waiting for deliveries on rainy street corners or keeping his mouth shut while business goes down. Stretched out on his stomach, he’s lulled by the fumes that drift in from the apothecary. It hurts, but that doesn’t bother him either. This isn’t like kids painting on themselves with tea and ink and pretending to be gangsters. This is forever. Triple Threat Triad for life.

The pain starts out sharp and sudden, but over the hours, it melts into a hot, dull ache. Now and then, he tries to twist his neck and get a better look at the design taking shape, but every time he does, the old woman pushes his head back down on the table.

“Stay put, or it’ll be your own fault if it’s ruined!”

He doesn’t get to see it until it’s done, but when he does, he grins like an idiot into the mirror, and he thinks maybe her sour puss relaxes a little. A tsunami curls over his shoulder, bright blue and flecked with white foam. The skin around it is red and swollen, and he reaches out to touch it, but the old woman smacks his hand.

“Don’t touch, idiot boy!”

She coats the tattoo with some sort of soothing salve and then wraps his shoulder in cotton and makes him promise to keep it dry for three days. To tell the truth, he’s never been great at following through on that sort of thing, but this time, he takes it seriously. He’s never had anything this important before.

It’s a week after his initiation when word comes that Mr. Zolt wants to see him. He’s a little nervous as he makes his way downtown to the boss’s private office above the Three Nations Bakery, even though his conscience is relatively clear and Mr. Zolt’s always been pretty nice to him. He’s given some free mochi by the girl at the counter as he waits in the shop, and eventually Young-Jae, one of the boss’s bodyguards, comes ambling down the stairs and calls him up.

Young-Jae waits outside the door, closing it quietly after Shin has stepped inside the office. He’s never been up here before, and he tries not to gawk. It’s the classiest place he’s ever seen. The furniture’s all gleaming cherry wood that’s probably worth more money than Shin’s earned in his life, and there are fancy rugs on the floor and real art hanging on the walls.

Sitting behind the desk, a bottle of sake in one hand and a little porcelain cup in the other, Mr. Zolt is the classiest thing of all in his sharp, two-toned silk suit with real gold buttons. Now that’s style. 

Mr. Zolt knocks back his sake and then looks Shin up and down with a grin. “So Baby Face Shin’s all grown up, huh?” 

Shin’s been going by Shady for two years, but you don’t correct the boss, because the boss is always right. He only grins back, slouching a little in relief. It doesn’t look like he’s in trouble. “I guess.”

“I heard you were at Granny Po’s last week getting ink.”

“Yes, sir.” The tattoo has healed, but he can still feel it pulling at little at his shoulder.

Mr. Zolt sets down the bottle and cup and motions for him to come around the desk. “Let me have a look.”

That’s when the light goes on. He’s not sure, not completely. But he lets his walk go slow and loose as he crosses the floor and comes to stand in front of the boss. He catches a certain kind of glint in Mr. Zolt’s eyes as he peels his shirt off. Then he turns around, letting him see.

“Shin,” Mr. Zolt says, like he’s weighing the name in his hands. “That’s not Water Tribe. You got some Fire Nation in you?”

If this were anyone else saying a thing like that, staring at him with his shirt off, Shin would be sure he was supposed to say no so that the other guy could say, “Do you want some?” But Mr. Zolt is a gentleman. He’s a real businessman, not like the mooks that Shin usually hangs out with. So he shrugs his shoulders and tells the truth. 

“Yeah,” he says before he remembers his manners. “Yes, sir. My mother.”

Shin was kind of a stupid kid. He didn’t realize until he started waterbending what everyone else already knew from the colour of his eyes and the colour of his skin. He got a lot of shit for it, growing up on Caldera Street, but the Triad isn’t like that. They’re a family, whether you’re Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom or Water Tribe or a Republic City mutt. Everyone’s equal. 

“That’s good,” Mr. Zolt says. “Fire and water, that’s a good balance. That’s the kind of man you can rely on.”

“Yes, sir,” he says. He wants the boss to be able to rely on him.

He can feel the warmth coming off Mr. Zolt’s hand a second before it settles on his shoulder. It’s surprisingly careful as it traces the curl of the tsunami and then the ragged edges of sea spray picked out in precise little scars. Surprising, because at that point, Shin hasn't yet seen Mr. Zolt with his glasses on, folding boats and lizard-cranes out of mulberry paper, but he has seen him electrocute a guy.

The boss follows the curve of the wave down to the trough, and then his hand continues down Shin’s back. It pauses just above the waistband of his pants, and when a moment passes and Shin keeps his mouth shut, it keeps on going. Over his pants, stroking his ass and then squeezing it. Shin has to bite his lip to keep himself from flinching, even though he likes it. You can’t let people think you’re a punk on the street.

“Turn around, kid.”

He turns, and then Mr. Zolt’s hand is on his dick, palming him through his pants. His eyes shut and he breathes out in a rush. The boss has big hands, and they’re both on him at once—one of them cupping his balls and the other one stroking his dick from root to tip, pushing it up against his belly and stroking it until it’s hard as it gets. He can feel the wet spot where he’s leaking, and for a moment he wonders if maybe he did fuck up after all and the boss is going to make him come in his pants as some sort of punishment.

Then the hands let him be for a second, and the drawstring is tugged loose. His pants slip down his hips, leaving him naked to the knees, his dick bobbing. He’s stroked again, this time skin to skin. His hips rock forward, and a little sound slips from his mouth. He shouldn’t look, but he has to—stealing a glance down and moaning a faint “fuck” at the sight of his dick pushing through Mr. Zolt’s fist.

The boss smirks, and Shin laughs breathily, trying to say it’s cool, everything’s cool, before he closes his eyes again. It’s the first time in his life he’s been jerked off this slowly. Usually if it’s going to happen, it’s been quick and hard enough to make his teeth rattle. This is different, like the boss is screwing with him a little, and soon enough his legs are shaking and his balance tips forward.

He’s half expecting to get told off when he braces his hands on the arms of the chair to keep from falling over. But the boss only chuckles, and then there’s hot breath on his shoulder. A mouth on his tattoo, tongue flicking over the sea spray.

When he comes, it’s a hot, slow rush. He clamps his mouth shut to keep quiet, thinking about Young-Jae just outside that door, and about the sweet girl downstairs. He chokes a little, but he keeps from moaning as the boss’s steady hand milks him for every drop he has.

“Fu-uck,” Shin breathes, still shaking with it when Mr. Zolt takes out a handkerchief and cleans up the mess. 

When he opens his eyes, he’s got a front row view of Mr. Zolt’s hard-on. He slides down to his knees. The boss likes initiative.

"You ever suck dick before?" Mr. Zolt asks, flipping Shin’s hair out of his eyes.

He briefly considers lying, playing coy in case he’s supposed to be some kind of virgin. But he ended up hustling now and then last year when work from the gang dried up, and the boss probably knows it. 

“Couple of times.”

“Good.”

Shin smiles. That’s just about the best word you can get from the boss. He works at the buttons carefully, having a pretty good idea how much a suit like this goes for. Faded ink rises up from the boss’s thighs, disappearing under his shirt. Curiosity gnaws at him. He can see the tail end of what looks like a wicked cool dragon, but he wasn’t told to fuck around. He offers a slow lick instead, looking up to find Mr. Zolt staring down at him with hot eyes, and then he takes him into his mouth and shows him what he can do.

It’s a point of pride that he can usually suck a guy off in three minutes flat. He hasn’t sold himself all that often, but he always charged by the job, not by the clock, and faster paid better than good. But the hand that winds tight in his hair and the way Mr. Zolt slouches down in his seat tell him to take his time. He gets his mouth good and wet and makes it slow and sloppy. He doesn’t really have to fake the little mm-mm sounds as he works the boss’s dick. The rug is soft under his knees, and the boss’s cologne smells good, and there’s a hand on his bare shoulder, thumb brushing back and forth over his neck.

The boss’s breathing grows rougher, and he hums as Shin gets fancy with his tongue. His hand tightens in Shin’s hair, and then he’s pulling him in closer, moaning a heated “Nice” as he comes, the salty, bitter mess flooding Shin’s mouth before it’s swallowed down.

“Real nice,” Mr. Zolt says again, patting Shin on the shoulder.

From then on, he’s the boss’s go-to guy. He runs private errands, drives him places, and keeps him up to date on what’s going on at the street level. In turn, he finds himself with a perpetual wad of cash in his pocket, a sweet Sato Speedster (“Can’t have my chauffeur taking the trolley”), and a nice apartment two blocks away from the bakery. 

Discretion’s the name of the game. The boss likes to keep things neat. For all that everyone knows you don’t mess with Shin, Mr. Zolt doesn’t make a show of him in public, just like he always gives Shin the night off from driving when he’s taking out that little actress girlfriend of his. Shin has three responsibilities: do his job well, keep his mouth shut, and be nice to the boss’s wife. He takes these seriously, and because of that, he’s never disappointed.

The wife gets the opera, and the actress girlfriend gets dinners on the town, but Shin privately thinks he has the best deal. He’s the one who gets to go out to the dice hall with the boss on Friday nights, always with some “fun money” of his own to gamble away and nothing else to do all night but make sure the boss’s drinks keep coming. 

If the boss wins, they’ll go out for sake and noodles afterwards, and Shin will pull over somewhere dark and quiet on the way home to suck him off as he crows over his victory. When Mr. Zolt loses, they go straight to the pulling over part, and Shin gets fucked hard in the back seat of the town car, biting down on his sleeve to keep quiet as the whole vehicle rocks on its wheels. 

They got caught once. Shin was jerking himself off frantically, this close to coming as the boss pounded his ass, and the next thing he knew there was a light shining through the window and a hard tap on the glass. 

“Well, fuck,” Mr. Zolt said, just as cool as can be, and pulled his pants up and rolled down the window. 

“Something the matter, officer?”

Not having been told otherwise, Shin just lay there on his back, legs still in the air, his dick hard and his hole slick. He smirked at the cop’s uncomfortable stare.

And the boss...the boss was legendary. Didn’t bat an eye. Just suddenly remembered that he’d been remiss in dropping off his monthly donation to the Police Widows and Orphans fund and slipped several thousand yuan out the window. 

That’s what Shin remembers every time he gets new ink. The soft, expensive leather against his skin. The way the cop, who might have been one of the ones who hassled him as a kid, straightened right up and called Mr. Zolt “sir,” falling all over himself to apologize for the misunderstanding. The laughing grin just for him, all the losses of the night forgotten as the boss got back on top and nailed his ass through the seats. And every time he’s on the table, under the needle, he’s got to remind himself that it wouldn’t be classy to get “Property of Lightning Bolt Zolt” written all over him. It wouldn’t be discreet—wouldn’t be good business. 

But if maybe there’s a gap between the sea spray on his shoulder and the spikes on the unagi that curls around his ribs—if the sharp clouds around the full moon never quite touch the curving fins of the elephant koi—who’s going to notice, except maybe Granny Po, and she likes him enough by now not to go running her mouth. It’s the ink everyone sees, the ink that says, “Mess with me and you mess with the Triad,” the ink that makes him a somebody. But it’s the jagged lightning bolt on his bare skin in between that makes him Mr. Zolt’s.


End file.
